CHRONOLOGICAL HISTORY OF THE HERRING-FISHERY. 203 



Defrauds us of the glittering finny swarms, 

 That heave our firths, and crowd upon our shores ; 

 How all enlivening trade to rouse, and wing 

 The prosperous sail, from every growing port, 

 Unchallenged, round the sea-encircled globe ; 

 And thus, in soul imited as in name. 

 Bid Britain reign the mistress of the deep." 



He quotes a letter from " LocL Eogim," stating that, in 

 June 1749, that loch, a bay of the sea, was full of herrings, 

 and that the people had not salt, casks, or materials 

 remaining. He hints at the probability of getting her- 

 rings in the Murray Firth, seeing that the salmon caught 

 there in August had often herrings in their stomachs ; 

 and from his remarking that five or six hundred barrels 

 were cured off Anstruther in August 1749, we learn that the 

 periodical visits of herrings in both firths were unknown, 

 and had been subsequently discovered from the encourage- 

 ment given by the Trustees or Fishery Board of subse- 

 quent years. He states that there " was great plenty of 

 herrings last year" (1749) at Ayr ; " they filled all the bar- 

 rels and casks they could get, cured all their salt, and 

 still the herrings continued." He states, also, that in 1749 

 the French had several herring busses in the North Sea, 

 and that there were also several Swedish busses similarly 

 employed. And he speaks of the various attempts made 

 by the British nation to promote the fisheries, " but for 

 what reason none have been effectual I am at a loss," he 

 says, " to determine." 



He informs us that the merchants of London petitioned 

 the House of Commons, in 1749, for a fishery, which peti- 

 tion, he says, mentions " the benefit that would accrue to 

 the United Kingdom from the establishment of a fishery — 

 viz., the increasing the vent of our staple manufactures ; 

 the multiplying of our seamen ; the employment of a vast 



